SurfaceTension:Technically it was because we were having taxes imposed while not having representation in parliament.

Not to go all Howard Zinn (I just assume he's written something that bears a resemblance to the following), but technically that's a very simplistic analysis. Very few people could even vote at the time, even for local colonial offices that were independent of the crown; if you weren't a white, male landowner over 21 years of age, even the local authority would not enfranchise you. Those at the head of the revolutionary movement, including John Adams, fervently opposed widening the right to vote. "Taxation without representation" was a convenient slogan, but it couldn't mean much to the "middle" and lower classes that didn't meet the parameters necessary to have the vote. And it certainly wasn't a policy that the colonies bothered to remedy after winning their independence from the crown.

Remember that people and politicians aren't really any different now from how they were 350 years ago. Sloganeering and the political spectacle are as old as time. The people at the front of an ideological movement will find ways to convince people who stand to gain very little if anything from that movement that they need to join in. Look at today's Tea Party and other fringe groups.

kronicfeld:SurfaceTension: Technically it was because we were having taxes imposed while not having representation in parliament.

Not to go all Howard Zinn (I just assume he's written something that bears a resemblance to the following), but technically that's a very simplistic analysis. Very few people could even vote at the time, even for local colonial offices that were independent of the crown; if you weren't a white, male landowner over 21 years of age, even the local authority would not enfranchise you. Those at the head of the revolutionary movement, including John Adams, fervently opposed widening the right to vote. "Taxation without representation" was a convenient slogan, but it couldn't mean much to the "middle" and lower classes that didn't meet the parameters necessary to have the vote. And it certainly wasn't a policy that the colonies bothered to remedy after winning their independence from the crown.

Remember that people and politicians aren't really any different now from how they were 350 years ago. Sloganeering and the political spectacle are as old as time. The people at the front of an ideological movement will find ways to convince people who stand to gain very little if anything from that movement that they need to join in. Look at today's Tea Party and other fringe groups.

After reading A People's History, I got the impression that it was just a bunch of rich people over here who didn't like other rich people across the ocean telling them what to do and preventing them from getting even richer.

Cythraul:After reading A People's History, I got the impression that it was just a bunch of rich people over here who didn't like other rich people across the ocean telling them what to do and preventing them from getting even richer.

That's basically right. It's what makes our revolution much less interesting and dramatic than the French Revolution.

Cythraul:After reading A People's History, I got the impression that it was just a bunch of rich people over here who didn't like other rich people across the ocean telling them what to do and preventing them from getting even richer.

I only read bits and pieces of A People's History over a decade ago, so I really don't know if I'm echoing Zinn or not. Maybe I'm just a cynic, but I don't think it's all that hard to look behind the simplistic veneer that we were taught in grade school. People seem to think that historical politicians were somehow radically different from the politicians of today, to the point that they were paladins of virtue and altruism, and that's just silly.

kronicfeld:Cythraul: After reading A People's History, I got the impression that it was just a bunch of rich people over here who didn't like other rich people across the ocean telling them what to do and preventing them from getting even richer.

I only read bits and pieces of A People's History over a decade ago, so I really don't know if I'm echoing Zinn or not. Maybe I'm just a cynic, but I don't think it's all that hard to look behind the simplistic veneer that we were taught in grade school. People seem to think that historical politicians were somehow radically different from the politicians of today, to the point that they were paladins of virtue and altruism, and that's just silly.

From what I remember of A People's History, what you said was very close to what Zinn wrote.

If you don't like what Obama is doing, take control and get some bills passed that actually solve the problems. You have the power, but you are going to have to *gasp* consider everyone and not be retarded to get your bills passed; just like it's always been. Otherwise shut up while Obama solves your problems for you since you can't do it.

SurfaceTension:DamnYankees: Then he's an idiot. That's NOT why we fought the American Revolution. Like, at all.

We didn't fight because we had a monarch. We fought because we didn't have representation in Parliament.

Technically it was because we were having taxes imposed while not having representation in parliament.

If you want to go even further back it's because we had a tax imposed on us to pay for the French and Indian War after Parliament rejected the colonists' proposal to organize their own militias to defend themselves.

kronicfeld:SurfaceTension: Technically it was because we were having taxes imposed while not having representation in parliament.

Not to go all Howard Zinn (I just assume he's written something that bears a resemblance to the following), but technically that's a very simplistic analysis. Very few people could even vote at the time, even for local colonial offices that were independent of the crown; if you weren't a white, male landowner over 21 years of age, even the local authority would not enfranchise you. Those at the head of the revolutionary movement, including John Adams, fervently opposed widening the right to vote. "Taxation without representation" was a convenient slogan, but it couldn't mean much to the "middle" and lower classes that didn't meet the parameters necessary to have the vote. And it certainly wasn't a policy that the colonies bothered to remedy after winning their independence from the crown.

Remember that people and politicians aren't really any different now from how they were 350 4,000 years ago. Sloganeering and the political spectacle are as old as time. The people at the front of an ideological movement will find ways to convince people who stand to gain very little if anything from that movement that they need to join in. Look at today's Tea Party and other fringe groups.

Barack Obama is not a king - he's just a run of the mill fascist. Just look at the reports of him using some kind of mythical 'executive powers' to strip our gun rights and bypass congress and any type of vote. He fears a vote, he fears democracy. Typical scumbag fascist.

Okay, this is as nutty as the people in 2004 and 2008 claiming Bush would declare martial law and rule for life. Go pretend that 9/11 was an inside job. That New Town was an Obama conspiracy. That Obama is Kenyan...well, that one might be true.

Also that black summovabiatch is like Hitler and Mussolini and Pol Pot and Ayatollah Khamenei and Saddam Hussein and Maummar Gaddafi and Osama Bin Ladin and Kim Jong-Il and Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and Hosni Mubarak and Joseph Stalin and Robert Mugabe and Mao Zedong and Augusto Pinochet and Francisco Franco and Fidel Castro and Omar Bongo and Nursultan Nazarbayev and Vidkun Quisling and Idi Amin all rolled into one person who thinks he's Julius Caesar or some shiat.